This study of Southeast Asian media and politics explores issues of global relevance pertaining to journalism's relationship with political power. It argues that the development of free, independent, and plural media has been complicated by trends towards commercialisation, digital platforms, and identity-based politics. These forces interact with state power in complex ways, opening up political space and pluralising discourse, but without necessarily producing structural change. The Element has sections on the democratic transitions of Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia; authoritarian resilience in Singapore; media ownership patterns in non-communist Southeast Asia; intolerance in Indonesia and Myanmar; and digital disruptions in Vietnam and Malaysia.

Communication is ubiquitous and information is abundant. Political and economic markets are more open than they have ever been. Yet, there is no escaping the fact that communication continues to flow across fields where power is distributed unevenly. This collection of articles analyzes and responds to asymmetries of power in a diversity of contexts. They are drawn from presentations at the 2016 Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, held in Fukuoka, Japan. The conference theme presented an opening for scholars from various disciplines and academic traditions to engage with the questions of power at different levels of analysis-from micro sites of power like a doctor's consultation room, to the geopolitical arenas where nations wage war, make peace, and spy on one another. The resulting collection straddles different methodologies and styles, from survey research to essays. Leading scholars and junior researchers have combined to create a volume that reflects the breadth of communication scholarship and its contemporary concerns.

For decades, the city-state of Singapore has been an international anomaly, combining an advanced and open economy with reduced civil liberties and press freedom. The book analyses the country's media system, showing how it has been structured - like the rest of the political framework - to provide maximum freedom of manoeuvre for the People's Action Party (PAP) government. Going beyond critique, the author explains how the PAP's ""freedom from the press"" model has achieved its extraordinary resilience and stability. One key factor was the PAP's early recognition that capitalism and the profit motive could be harnessed as a way to tame journalism. Second, the PAP exercised strategic self-restraint in the use of force, progressively turning to subtler means of control that were less prone to backfire on the state. Third, unlike many authoritarian regimes, the PAP remained open to ideas and change and occasional failure, this helped the PAP to consolidate its authoritarian form of electoral democracy. This volume is essential reading for those who are interested in Singapore's media and political system. Singapore's unique place on the world map of press freedom and democracy makes the book an important contribution to the comparative study of journalism and politics.

Communication is ubiquitous and information is abundant. Political and economic markets are more open than they have ever been. Yet, there is no escaping the fact that communication continues to flow across fields where power is distributed unevenly. This collection of articles analyzes and responds to asymmetries of power in a diversity of contexts. They are drawn from presentations at the 2016 Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, held in Fukuoka, Japan. The conference theme presented an opening for scholars from various disciplines and academic traditions to engage with the questions of power at different levels of analysis-from micro sites of power like a doctor's consultation room, to the geopolitical arenas where nations wage war, make peace, and spy on one another. The resulting collection straddles different methodologies and styles, from survey research to essays. Leading scholars and junior researchers have combined to create a volume that reflects the breadth of communication scholarship and its contemporary concerns.